1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an initializing method of a reinforcing bar binding machine before binding a reinforcing bar after replacement of a wire reel.
2. Related Art
Generally, in a reinforcing bar binding machine, a wire is fed from a wire reel and wound around reinforcing bars, and the wire is cut by a wire cutting portion. A portion of the wire wound around the reinforcing bars is gripped and twisted, thereby the reinforcing bars is bound (refer JP-A-2008-025252). When a remaining wire in the wire reel becomes empty and a new wire reel is loaded, the reinforcing bar binding machine must be initialized before binding the reinforcing bars. On this occasion, after loading of the new wire reel, a leading edge of a wire must be positioned. Ina conventional reinforcing bar binding machine, a feed means feeds a wire in a small amount after loading of the wire reel, and the wire cutting portion cuts the wire, thereby positioning the leading edge of the wire. Through these operations, a specified amount of wire can be fed even in a first binding operation subsequent to replacement of the wire reel, and stable binding operation becomes feasible.
However, when a wire is cut after the wire has been fed in a small amount by the feed means every time the reinforcing bar binding machine is initialized at the time of replacement of a wire reel, a snippet of the wire turns into rubbish; thus, the wire is uselessly consumed. Moreover, there is a potential of the wire snippet being left in a curl guide located at an extremity of a binding machine main body, to thus cause wire jams. Moreover, if small pieces of the wire are left at a building site, the small pieces will be mixed into concrete during pouring of the concrete. The small pieces of the wire will later rust, whereupon a surface of the concrete will turn into a yellow or swell, to thus cause cracks. For these reasons, the building site must be cleaned up with utmost attention so as to prevent the small pieces of the wire from being left in the building site.
Accordingly, conceivable countermeasures are to feed the wire by worker's hand and to perform only idling of the wire cutting portion without automatically feeding the wire by the feed means during initializing operation.
However, when the user sends the wire to a position ahead of a cutter, the wire will actually be cut. As a result, a small piece of the wire will be left in the binding machine main body; thus, the countermeasures encounter a problem of a binding failure being caused by wire jams. Further, if the wire is inserted in an insufficient amount during setting operation, an extent to which the wire is fed by single binding operation after initialization will be reduced, and a frequency of occurrence of screw-thread cutting will increase.
For these reasons, under both of these methods, it is necessary to provide a user in advance with an instruction for a wire position to be taken during replacement of a wire reel, thereby letting the user understand the instruction. The user is also required to load the wire reel according to the instruction. Therefore, if the user is not provided with an instruction for handling or if the user forgets the instruction, any of the previously mentioned problems will occur.